September 11, 2011

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2010-11 Precon Championships: Turian Division (Part 1 of 2)

by Dredd77

Welcome back to the exciting 2010-11 Preconstructed Deck Championships! We’re about halfway through our coverage with the Rosewater Conference now down to two remaining contenders, Knights and Doom Inevitable. They’re on hold for now as we move the action over to the Forsythe Conference’s historic Turian Division. We say ‘historic’ for while this is a relatively new competition, we’ve already crowned two champions for their respective seasons. The 2008-09 Champion, Alara Reborn’s Dead Ahead, came from the Turian and defeated two different Duel Decks– including a titanic final battle against Jace. Will the Turian prove to be the spawning ground of champions? Or just another contender?

Let’s take a look at this season’s Turian bracket:

The Teams to Beat

This season’s Tinsman is a hard place to be a little guy in. With power-packed decks from Archenemy and a pair of Event Decks, the lesser Intro Pack decks will have their work cut out for them. We’ll begin with a review of the eight decks contending to lead the storied Tinsman to a repeat championship!

Detail: With a strategy as straightforward as it is diabolic, Apocalypse looks to dump enormous brutes into its graveyard then animate them back out again on the cheap. With a sizable number of ways to do so, it is a monstrous threat when given time and space to set up its recursion engines. For any deck facing down the shambling hordes of the undead, Apocalypse’s weakness might well be that it can take some time to engage, meaning a quick deck might be able to pull off a win. (Reviews: deck, play)

Detail: One of the first two Event Decks to make themselves known, Into the Breach is a version of the “Kuldotha Red” Standard deck. A variant of Goblin aggro that throws in a few tricks, it goes up against Bring About the Undead Apocalypse in its opener. Will it have the speed it needs to secure victory before being outclassed? (Reviews: deck, play)

Detail: This Boros-coloured deck features the Phyrexian mana mechanic, meaning that it can pump out a lot of early spells and effects using its life total as a resource. With a small lifegain suite designed to ffset these costs, Life for Death has the fuel it needs to power out early domination. (Review: deck, play)

The antidote to artifice, Relic Breaker was included in Scars of Mirrodin to give a silver bullet to the overreliance upon artifact decks- namely, the other four in the set! While the rest of the decks of the block give it plenty of juicy targets to smash, the big question Relic Breaker has to face is how it will perform against the premium decks in this season’s playoffs- decks which may carry little of interest to Relic Breaker. (Review: deck, play)

Powerful on paper, Rot from Within is the very definition of a ‘glass cannon.’ It looks to dump almost everything it has in just a few attacks, getting in with a cheap infect creature then using Green pump-spells to take it over the top. With nearly half its rares mothballed in the sideboard (which won’t be in use here), it’s a good thing it can get the job done with just commons! (Reviews: deck, play)

Detail: A traditional heavy Green stompy deck, Stampede will be looking to ramp into trampling fatties and overwhelm its opposition. As the lowest-tier deck in the Division (as a Core Set Intro), it will have its work cut out for it. But it should take heart- it’s not every deck that can deal with the rolling thunder of a Green stampede, and if it can get its bruisers into play anything can happen! (Reviews: deck,play)

Few things get the fans’ excitement going like planeswalkers, and each season only two decks have ’em- the Duel Decks! With Elspeth seeded in the next division this is the first taste of action for either. Tez does everything you’d expect- drop some early artifact enablers, then assert his authority with heavy artifact beats and spells that can take full advantage! (Reviews: deck, play)

Detail: Think Stampede of Beasts on overdrive, Trample also looks to ramp up into the fatties and smash face. However, being a premium deck has its advantages, and this deck is packed with powerful cards from throughout the history of the game. It’s hardest challenge might well be its first, against the explosive Rot from Within. All the fatties in the game won’t amount to anything if you’ve taken ten poison counters on turn 2. (Reviews: deck, play)

And now… to battle!

Trample Civilization Underfoot vs Rot from Within

Game One

Rot from Within leads off with a Glistener Elf, then hits for extra damage next turn with a Mutagenic Growth. Trample Civilization Underfoot manages a Wall of Roots to buy it some time, then adds a morphed Thelonite Hermit. By then, however, Rot has added a second Glistener Elf and a Rot Wolf. A turn-4 strike with a Groundswell seals the deal for Rot, and Trample never contended.

Breaker struggles early and leaves itself wide open. It lands a turn-2 Copper Myr and follows up with a Molder Beast. Meanwhile, in those few turns Life has brought out a Cathedral Membrane, Pristine Talisman, and Rage Extractor. This time, the Extractor sticks.

With the Extractor in place, a Slash Panther kills off the Molder Beast, then swings in virtually unopposed. While breaker scrambles for answers, Life adds Kemba’s Skyguard and an Ogre Resister. Breaker brings in a Flameborn Hellion in desperation, and it falls prey to the Cathedral Membrane the very next turn. BreakerArc Trails the Panther and Fireballs the Skyguard, but the Ogre Resister gets stuck in hard. A 5-point blast from the Extractor off an Act of Aggression stealing Breaker’s lonely Copper Myr finishes the game.

WINNER: Life for Death

Bring About the Undead Apocalypse vs Into the Breach

Game One

Opening up a blitzkrieg against the undead, Into the Breach blows its hand early with a Goblin Guide, Ornithopter, and Memnite, while Apocalypse looks to stall for time. A Reassembling Skeleton helps a little, trading out with the Memnite, but the Memnite is immediately replaced with another. An Infectious Horror draws a Lightning Bolt, as does a Corpse Connoisseur. A Spikeshot Elder joins the fray for Breach, then a Devastating Summons comes down for a pair of 3/3’s. An Avatar of Discord and a ReanimatedFestering Goblin buy it a round, but Apocalypse gets steamrolled by aggressive Red.

Game Two

This time, Apocalypse holds off the early rush, thanks in part to good removal in the opening hand. Breach opens with a Goblin Guide, Memnite, and Ornithopter. A few lucky hits off of the Goblin Guide fill Apocalypse’s hand with land and keeps it flush with resources. An Infectious Horror and Urborg Syphon-Mage get some early attack damage in after the Goblin Guide is traded with a Dregscape Zombie. A Devastating Summons (again sacrificing a trio of lands) is neutralised with a Terminate and Bituminous Blast, and the cascade of the Blast offers a replacement Infectious Horror. It’s neck and neck, but the Syphon-Mage keeps the life coming and ultimately deals the fatal blow.

Game Three

Once more Breach has a consistent opener, leading with a Memnite and pair of Ornitopters, while Apocalypse looks to try and outlast the initial rush. A Festering Goblin and Dregscape Zombie hold off the swarm after a Kuldotha Rebirth, but the real play is a Rakdos Guildmage. The Guildmage is triggered to kill off an enemy Goblin Wardriver, and the Scion of Darkness discarded to pay for the Guildmage is then brought into play with a Zombify. A Devstating Summons for 4 is no match as one of the 4/4’s gets Shriekmawed away. The Scion grabs the Wardriver afrom Breach’s graveyard after pounding in for 6, and next turn the Wardriver leads Apocalypse’s troops to victory after the Guildmage picks off the last Ornithopter.

Tezzeret builds up into a Pentavus, then Tezz himself goes ultimate with a flock of Pentavites for a stampede of his own!

Game Two

Stampede looks to go big early with a turn-1 Llanowar Elves leading into a turn-2 Awakener Druid. Again Tezzeret solves the puzzle with a Contagion Clasp to kill the Druid, but Stampede retrieves the Druid with a Nature’s Spiral. Tezzeret sets out a Moonglove Extract in anticipation, and Stampede boldly plays the Druid anyway. Next turn before the attack, Tezzeret pops the Extract to kill the Druid, but Stampede responds with a surprise Giant Growth to save it.

All the while, Tezzeret has laid down a foundation with a Stalking Stones and Mishra’s Factory. Along with a Faerie Mechanist, he animates the lands to attack across a clear board (after the Juggernaut trades with a Basilisk). Although pushed to the edge, Tezzeret manages the comback on the back of the animated lands and finishes off Stampede.

WINNER: Tezzeret

Eight walked in, four walk out and today’s coverage of the 2010-11 Preconstructed Championships draws to a close. Join us next week as our four remaining contenders go head to head to see which one will stand alone beneath the Turian Division banner!

Never say die! Every time we do one of these series, we learn a few things for the next. For instance, this is the third one we’ve done, but the first Playoffs that involve both reader predictions (in a formal sense) as well as a contest for the winner. For the next one, we’ll not only do a contest for the winner, but also a random prize for all the players that had the most predictions- no matter if they were right or wrong. So if you start in the beginning and predict to the end, you’ve still got a shot at walking away with something. Thanks for playing so far, we’re really enjoying the turnout!

In my Elspeth vs. Tezzeret testing, Elspeth had a higher win rate than Tezzeret. Her deck’s more consistent and almost always has a tempo advantage; she mulligans better and has better early drops and removal. The key with Tezzeret is to stabilize the board until you can drop a good haymaker like Masticore or Pentavus and try to beat Elspeth’s one-for-one removal with card advantage spells like Faerie Mechanist and Thirst for Knowledge. The difficult thing, though, is that Elspeth can play any of her pump spells, and then all of your good blocks disappear because your creatures are all Runed Servitors and Assembly Workers and hers all have first strike or flying.

You can see in the first game how Stampede of Beasts came in real slow and Tezzeret had plenty of time to set up durdly combo shenanigans.